


Anno Mirablis

by tokyofish



Category: Sailor Moon
Genre: Community: 31_days, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-09
Updated: 2005-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-04 06:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokyofish/pseuds/tokyofish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spring comes to end a long, long Winter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anno Mirablis

**Author's Note:**

> Sailor Moon is © Takeuchi Naoko, Kodansha, Toei, etc. This is a nonprofit fanwork.

It began with the tiniest of signs.

An icicle began to lose its shape, droplet by droplet and the children stared at it in wonder and said, _What magic is this?_ and full of fear the adults kept their counsel. The children jostled for the privilege of tasting a drop on their tongues as it fell.

A light bloomed atop one of the tall stone trees caked in ice, and the children screamed, _The tree is burning but the ice does not melt nor the frozen branches snap and sizzle into ash!_ For weeks they watched the globe of light burn steadily atop the branchless tree until hither and yon it was joined by other balls of burning light, blinking alive in the darkness. And in the night they chanted to make the lights grow brighter.

One morning a girl, tripping in the snow, landed before a curious spot of color - red and green - a growing thing. She dared not touch it but ran for others, and was told by those whose eyes had never seen such a thing but had lived many years on the green grasses that grew deep beneath the frozen waters and had only heard their mothers' mothers sing of it sadly as they did of those long covered by layers of snow, _This is a flower._ They scooped away a circle of snow around it and everyday they sat around it and paid it homage - this minuscule oasis in the wasteland.

There was fear in the eyes of the people, and hope.

But it was only when the water fell, warm and wet, and made small dark holes within the white earth that the people lifted their hands to the heavens and shouted, _The world is ending! The world is being born! _

The people shielded their eyes and when it faded they followed a path of moonlight laid out across the glittering wastes.

In time they came to a mountain range of ice the like of which none of them had ever seen. The mountain was a series of smooth towers glowing with rainbow iridescence. Ice did not cling to their walls and when the people touched them they were smooth as river stone. Man could not make these towers and yet, they were not of nature.

They stopped outside what they fancied were gates and waited as the days grew warmer and warmer and the ice crept farther and farther from the green things that sprang up unexpectedly from the ground.

Other people, small bands like themselves, gathered day by day and spread their blankets so that all could share and speak in forgotten tongues and learn anew the language of humanity.

It was Spring, they would always remember, the first Spring in anyone's recollection save those who slumbered within the crystal walls, when her eyes opened. Not that anyone of them was there to see it, but they were watching when the gate swung open. And they were watching when she appeared, the avatar of a snow queen, supported on either side by a tall man in a dark suit and a woman wearing something which left her legs and arms open to the frigid wind, with a band of people as brightly colored as the lights in the northern sky trailing after. Within her hands she held a jewel of fire and raised it gently into the air; it floated serenely above her hands.

For but an instant the gray sky grew whiter than snow, like the shine of a mirror turned towards the sun. The light spread, bright and shining from horizon to horizon across the earth.

They called this stretch of time, _Anno mirablis._


End file.
